- A Diagnosis - Thomas Adams
Indeed heresy cannot possess a church, but it gives a subversion to it. ‘I may err, a heretic I cannot be,’ says Augustine. Furthermore, Tertullian claims that what is diametrically opposed against the truth is heresy, yea, though it be an ancient and long-received custom. A church may be sick of error, and yet live; but heresy (a wilful error against the fundamental truth, violently prosecuted and persisted in) kills it. Therefore heresy is rather death than sickness. When the truth of doctrine, or rather doctrine of truth, has been turned to the falsehood of heresy, God has removed their candlestick, and turned their light into darkness. Error may make it sick, but so that it may be cured. The churches of Corinth, Galatia, Pergamos had these sicknesses; the Holy Ghost, by Paul and John, prescribes their cures. If they had been dead, what needed any direction of medicine? If they had not been sick, what purpose was there in prescribing a remedy?
